These perfect paleo chocolate chip cookies are thick, chewy and have the perfect texture. Many of the reviewers have called these the best cookies ever and said that nobody had a clue that they were paleo! They also have a vegan option. Thanks to Bob’s Red Mill for making today’s post possible!

1/24/17: I just updated the pictures and added a video. Recipe’s still exactly the same! One of the old pictures can be found at the bottom of the post for reference. And I’d love for you to check out the video! It’s got a lot of fun stop-motion effects in it. :)

My paleo and grain-free recipes have been seriously lacking as of late. I ran out of my favorite Bob’s Red Mill almond flour months ago and I’ve been so frustrated with the brands of almond flour I’ve been buying here in Germany since they’re so inconsistent.

Because I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of ordering flour from the US, I thought I’d wait it out until December, when I’ll back in the US and can buy all the Bob’s Red Mill I want.

But then I got a hankering for chocolate chip cookies. And I really wanted to make paleo cookies.

So I went to work and while every batch tasted amazing, the appearance and thickness was different every single time. The only variable?

The almond flour. The almond flour I’d been buying varies from brand to brand and even within the same brand.

They come in tiny 1-cup bags here so I go through a load of them when recipe testing. I’d open up one bag and find some finely ground almond flour, then I’d open up another bag from the same company, and it was overall coarser with bits of sliced almonds.

Sliced almonds! In my almond flour. That was the final straw.

So to save my sanity, I ordered myself some Bob’s Red Mill almond flour. By the way, for anyone else living abroad, Vitacost has great international shipping rates! I just recently discovered this and it’s been life-changing. ;)

If you have Bob’s Red Mill in a retail store in your area, you can use one of these $1 coupons.

The cookies made with Bob’s Red Mill came out thick, chewy and just as delicious and magical as all-purpose flour chocolate chip cookies. I doubt that anyone would be able to tell that these are paleo cookies! And every batch comes out the same. Hooray for consistency!

So the almond flour obviously plays a huge role in the final outcome of these paleo cookies. Another thing that will affect the cookies is the temperature of the coconut oil.

If you make these in the summer when room temperature coconut oil means melted coconut oil, you’ll need to refrigerate the coconut oil until it’s firmer, like softened butter.

If you make these dairy-free cookies with melted coconut oil, the dough will be very greasy and the chocolate chips will be hard to incorporate into the dough.

You’ll also need to chill the dough if you use coconut sugar rather than brown sugar. I made one version with brown sugar and one with coconut sugar at the same time and the brown sugar cookies were nice and thick while the coconut sugar version spread flat and was super thin.

I refrigerated the remaining coconut sugar dough until firm and that resulted in nice and thick cookies, just like the brown sugar version! Just a little darker colored.

If you can’t tell by the pictures, these perfect paleo chocolate chip cookies are huge. Instead of making 8 cookies, you can make 16 to get regular-sized cookies. I just prefer how they bake up with gooier and chewier centers when they’re larger!

If you’re reading this post around Christmas, you have to try my paleo peppermint cookies. Double chocolate + peppermint. SO good!

6/30/16 update: I’ve been making these with chia eggs lately to make them vegan and they’re just as delicious! To make a chia egg, mix together 1 tablespoon of ground chia seeds and 3 tablespoons water. Let sit 5-15 minutes or until goopy like an egg. I’ve also tried these cookies using a flax egg but I didn’t like the taste.

Thanks again to Bob’s Red Mill for sponsoring this post! As always, all opinions expressed are my own. Be sure to check out some of their other gluten-free flours if you’re into gluten-free and paleo baking. :)

Ingredients

6 tablespoons (84 grams) coconut oil or unsalted butter, room temperature (if your coconut oil is a little melty, put it in the fridge for about 10-20 minutes or until firmer, like softened butter. If you use slightly melted coconut oil, the dough will be greasy and the chocolate chips will be hard to incorporate.)3

Directions

In a medium mixing bowl, stir together the almond flour, coconut flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl with an electric hand mixer or using a stand mixer, beat together the fat and sugar at medium speed until well combined, about 1 minute. If you use coconut oil, it may not come together easily. If that's the case, use your hands to combine it and then beat another 20 seconds.

Beat in the almond butter and vanilla extract on medium speed and mix until combined. Beat in the egg on low and mix until well incorporated. Stir in the flour mixture until well combined. Then stir in 1 cup (170 grams) chocolate chips. If you used brown sugar, skip to the next step. If you used coconut sugar, place the bowl in the refrigerator for about 1 hour or until the dough is firm.

Preheat the oven to 350 °F (175 °C) and line a baking sheet with a piece of parchment paper.

Roll the dough into 8 (75-gram) balls and place the remaining 1/4 cup (43 grams) of chocolate chips on the top and on the sides of the dough balls. You can also roll them into 16 smaller balls but then you need to adjust the baking time (a few minutes less than recommended below). Place 4" apart on the prepared baking sheet. Press the cookies down lightly with the palm of your hand.

Bake for 11-14 minutes (if using coconut sugar) or 14-17 minutes (if using brown sugar) or until the surface of the center of the cookies no longer appears wet. They'll be very soft but will continue to cook as they sit on the cookie sheet.

Let cool completely on the baking sheet. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Notes

If you don't have almond flour, you could try a different type of nut flour. Unfortunately, nuts flours aren’t interchangeable with non-nut flours. I’ve heard of people using sunflower seed flour as a sub but I've never tried it and have no idea if it'd work here.

There's no sub for coconut flour.

I haven't tried these with ghee or shortening or anything other than coconut oil and butter.

I don't recommend using honey, maple syrup, date syrup, etc. They make the cookies very cakey and in my opinion, not worth making.

I don't recommend making these with peanut butter. I’ve made these so many times with homemade peanut butter (with just peanuts and salt in it) and while the cookies aren’t a disaster, I just don’t think they’re very good. The texture is so different than the almond flour version and they’re not very peanut butter-y.

I’m not sure if you could possibly have gotten a better picture of those cookies. Yumm. I just saw the picture (ha ha) I didn’t even know what they were yet. I’m thinking they look good enough to go Vegan for a night!

I have been baking these cookies for the past year. My family absolutely loves them! While I have used Bob’s flours for years (love them), they can be rather pricey in NYC. My solution: I tried both almond and coconut flours (organic) from Trader Joe’s. They worked equally as well but at a substantial savings!

I made these last week and I’m about to make another batch. They didn’t look like the picture and I also made more bite sized cookies (on accident – since they don’t expand).

I did it with peanut butter and they are super yummy. I have never tried with almond butter so I don’t have anything to compare to but don’t fret if you just have peanut butter on hand. My PB is just peanuts ground up with 1% or less of salt

But they’re honestly so much better with almond butter (this coming from someone who doesn’t like almond butter but loves peanut butter!) ;) But it’s great that you enjoyed them! Thanks for your comment. :)

I’m looking forward to trying this recipe on my family. Currently we are on the beginning strict Paleo, very low carb. But the video shows you adding dry milk and there’s none on the recipe. I’ve read through the reviews and can’t find anyone else noticing this. Please inform the amount needed and is there a substitute? Looks like everyone else is making these without the milk? My hope is that they will help the cookies to last longer. The GF versions always go stale very very fast. Like I said can’t make them now but can dream!